


Your Hands Only

by elspethaurilie



Series: Your Hands Only [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: College of Winterhold - Freeform, Magic Head Canons, More tags to be added, many many more - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-03-29 13:04:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 4,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13927698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elspethaurilie/pseuds/elspethaurilie
Summary: Your Hands Only is a new weekly(ish) feature in which our author, by way of correspondence, will share authorial insights into her creative process as she attempts to finish this epic disaster, The Rise of House Sigeweald. She will attempt to  keep spoilers to a minimum but there will be some so proceed with caution. Readers are welcome to submit questions and letters to elspethaurilie@gmail.com.





	1. Letter #1

_Dear elspethaurilie,_

_Your story is pretty cool I guess. Onmund is my favorite husband in-game and I liked that you are keeping the romance in your story to the background, but still giving him his own story. I do have a concern, however. That Onmund’s family would have a blacksmith and even own their own forge is consistent with Nord culture. However, it doesn’t make much sense that Onmund could some how become both a skilled mage AND blacksmith since he’s kind of young. I mean, it’s cool for the story. But how is it possible? I don’t get the impression that he’s any sort of prodigy._

_~Wondering in Windhelm D_

 

Dear Wondering,

Thank you for the question! First, let’s get one thing clear. Onmund is not a skilled blacksmith. He is, at best, a competent assistant. It is true that I developed the blacksmith background as a way to give Onmund a reason to stay in Whiterun and give him something to do beyond the game’s in-home merchant option. And yes, Onmund did apprentice with his grandfather. However, as he stated in the game, “I can make a decent dagger“. As to his overall skill set, he can do basic repairs and maintenance of weapons and armor, and he can make simple blades with some metals (iron, steel, silver, and ebony; he is far less skilled with rarer metals like Dwemer, glass, corundum, moonstone, etc.). His interest in the lunar forge had far more to do with its arcane properties. He did make a bit of money smithing during his time in Whiterun, but this was by helping Adrienne forge weapons for the Imperials.

 

_Dear elspethaurilie,_

_When will you post your next chapter?_

_~Impatient Imperial_

 

Tomorrow.


	2. Letter #2

_Dear elspethaurilie,_

_Your story is pretty cool I guess. I must admit, however, that when I read the chapter in which Elspeth is asked to demonstrate her magical proficiency, I was a bit surprised. Until that point, Elspeth had never really come across as over-powered (in the Mary Sue sense of the word). Before that her abilities were well explained and given context. In this case, the spell seems kind of over-the-top. However, while I will acknowledge that the spell kind of moved things along plot-wise, I’m wondering if there is some explanation for going this route instead of something more restrained?_

_~Questioning Quaestor_

Dear Questioning,

Thank you for your question (I usually try to avoid that much word repetition). There are a couple of points that I’d like to address. First, is the issue of Mary Sues. I agree that the best hero characters are, in addition to being heroic and that entails, when fleshed out they are also flawed, whether that means sometimes vulnerable, occasionally thoughtless, or downright insincere in their intentions. However, when it comes to fan fiction, I also embrace the imaginative power and psychological necessity of creating figures that are larger than life. In a world where everything seems out of control (for better or worse), such characters can be cathartic. Elspeth is, in some ways, that for me. Though she’s been in my head forever, her current incarnation emerged at a time where I felt especially vulnerable. I had recently finished my graduate program, a program where I had very specific goals and a detailed path by which to achieve them and once that was over, everything was suddenly up in the air. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Elspeth’s Epic Disaster was a chance for me to create a world in which I controlled everything. I think that’s true of a lot of writers, but it seems especially true for fan fiction.

Second, as mentioned in the story, the spell has a specific history. It was basically employed as a kind of weapon of mass destruction, something that is not wielded by a typical destruction mage. It’s not useful in typical combat or self-defense.  When the treachery of the Thalmor was described, Delphine mentions burning of whole villages in Valenwood. Certainly, that could be accomplished by the types of spells given in the lore, but I liked the idea of having a spell whose only point is large-scale destruction. In particular, as horrible as it sounds, I liked the idea of a spell with enough collective power to destroy a lot of things at once but whose elements can also be resisted by other mages with a strong enough ward. It gave another angle to the fear of magic by the Nords that I, admittedly, have not explored yet.

Finally, (because all things must happen in threes), the spell basically represents a very small portion of my rather extensive headcanon surrounding the use of magic in Tamriel. I won’t go into great detail in this post, but suffice to say that the spell is a result of a kind of academic exercise similar to a thesis. The libraries of the mage guilds and other organizations are filled with these incredibly powerful, but kind of useless spells, whose only purpose was to demonstrate the apprentice’s skill in their chosen school/speciality. Very few of these specific spells make it into common use.

 

 

_Dear elspethaurilie,_

_You’ve been so slow to put out new chapters in recent years and the artwork on your blogs and twitter is now outpacing your written work. Is this fan mail feature really an opportunity to divulge creative insights or just filler text, unsubstantial meanderings, as a way to appear ‘active’?_

_~Casius ‘Curious’ Cosades_

Dear Cassius,

Can’t it be both?


	3. Letter #3

**This week we have a unique edition of “Your Hands Only”: 10 Questions for the Author**

**(1) Is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?**

Yes, well I’m not so much holding off as I just don’t have time for it. I’ve mentioned it on the blog before but it’s called “Under the Purple Sky” and it is a Skyrim-based story that focuses on all the non-heroes of the Dawnguard, both NPCs and several OCs. Two of the OCs are my protagonist, Prisca Isabela Cantor, a spoiled-Imperial who is recruited into the Dawnguard despite having little to no useful skills and V’ivan, the Redguard woman with an interesting history. Neither are the heroes of the Dawnguard plot, but they and others have stories of their own. Since Elspeth comes into the story already at full power, I wanted to have a character who is totally green and actually show a mentor/mentee relationship develop.

Since Trygve has gone off to help the Dawnguard, we will get a small peak at these characters soon.

**(2) What work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?**

The work that takes place after my Morrowind story but before the Oblivion story (linking my Neverarine to Maeve, the Hero of Kvatch). I re-read it the other day because it does tie into and will be referenced in the Skyrim story and it’s just awful. Just embarrassingly terrible. I will explain the connection and describe what happens in the story, but it will never see the light of the internet.

**(3) Who is your favorite character you’ve written?**

Trygve. But that should come as no surprise. His character arc has developed so much and I have so many things I am excited about. He’s one of the few characters who keeps still manages to surprise me, even when I think I have everything carefully planned. His eventual romance, for example, just sort of jumped out and bit me on the bottom.

**(4) Who is the character you were most surprised to end up writing?**

Bedyn. He was originally supposed to stay dead. And in many ways, he’s the most challenging. I have a really good hold on who he was when he was younger, during and after the war. But he’s still a huge work in progress. Because the experience of being held captive for so long, especially in the conditions he was kept, is going to take a huge toll on him and I really want to do that justice.

**(5) When asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?**

Enthusiastic. I used to be kind of embarrassed—I wouldn’t even tell my spouse about it. But now I figure, I am way too old to give the kind of fucks it takes to be embarrassed to do something I enjoy. It’s liberating, really. And I figure at the rate it’s taking me to finish and with which Bethesda keeps releasing special editions of the game, it won’t be long before my son’s friends approach him to say, “I read your mom’s story.”

And won’t that be fun?

**(6) What, if anything, do you do for inspiration?**

Make up writing exercises like this one, where I can hone my ideas. I make Spotify play lists for each character and their respective relationships. I commission art—seeing my characters come to life in full color and line art gives me a huge boost. I recently started taking a drawing course in the hopes that I might be able to draw them myself in the future.

**(7) Were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? What were they?**

I think with respect to pacing and overall structure, I am highly influenced by the novels I studied in graduate school and wrote about in my dissertation, in particular,  _The Street_  by Ann Petry and  _The Changelings_ by Jo Sinclair (and that is not a fantasy-type changeling, by the way). Those books are rooted more in a psychological realism genre and as such they are very straightforward with respect to plot, character, and dialogue. The prose, particularly in  _The Changeling_  can be lovely, but there aren’t long flowing descriptions or much in the way of symbolism.

However, the biggest influence on my storytelling is television, especially Joss Whedon via Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, which is why there are so many Easter eggs dedicated to him and his shows.

**(8) Do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?**

Both, kind of. I’d say shorter spurts is probably how I write most often, simply because I do not have time for long sit-down sessions. But also, when I do have a day where I can sit down for several hours, I wind up writing in spurts, rather than continuously.

**(9) Write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?**

I have tinnitus so background noise is a must, but I alternate between music and white noise (when music is too distracting). And while I probably get more done when I’m alone, I also enjoy writing as a part of the flow of everyday activity in my home. While my wee child does his reading and my spouse hangs out with the cats, I’m just typing away.

**(10) Are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?**

Smut. But it’s not just because sexy stuff is awkward (I mean, it is) but of all the subjects and themes involved in the story, it’s the one I hold myself to the highest standard. It’s one thing to have an awkward sounding party/group scene or some stilted dialogue, I can live with that. But I feel like bad smut would haunt me forever. It’s also uncomfortable because I can’t seem to write the kind of smut that I personally like the best. I can only seem to write in two extremes, fluffy, Vaseline-lens erotica or hard core pornography, when what I like falls between those. But this grey area of tasteful yet lustful prose seems to elude me.


	4. Letter #4

_Dear Elspethaurilie,_

_Your story is okay I guess. I have a question about your Lydia/Hrongar ship. I have seen that if something happens to Lydia, it is Hrongar who sends thugs after you. Since these letters are often sent from the NPC’s closest kin, other players have surmised that this means Lydia is Hrongar’s daughter.  Is your ship intended to challenge that interpretation or is it totally unrelated? Since Hrongar is Balgruuf’s brother, do you imagine a large age-gap between them? I imagine that Balgruuf is not super young since he seems to have been a peer of Ulfric’s (who has to be old enough to have fought in the Great War 25 years prior)?_

_Abelard “Curiosity kills the Khajiit” Septim_

Dear Abelard,

Thank you for the question. A couple of things. First, my narrative choices are only rarely meant to overtly challenge any individual headcanon or interpretation of the lore.  When this does happen, it is mostly after the fact.  In this particular case, the decision to ship Lydia and Hrongar had nothing to do with him sending the thugs—although it might be logical that some people would consider them father/daughter and others might ship them. So far, I’ve seen it only one other time.  I do personally love the father/daughter headcanon, in part, because it means that Balgruuf made his niece a housecarl, which I find kind of sweet.

*****

_Dear Elspethaurilie,_

_How do you feel about tropes? What tropes do you purposely employ in your story? Which ones do you avoid?_

_~Meddlin’ Mage_

Dear Meddlin’,

Thank you for the question. First, let me offer my overall conception of what I think of when I hear that question. I am assuming that you are asking about more than just literary or rhetorical devices, such as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony, and want to get into the more contemporary understanding of the term, which includes (sometimes derisively) any sort of thematic device that occurs in the story, the sort around which the website [TVTropes](http://tvtropes.org/) is built.

In short, I love tropes. I love going the TV tropes site, looking up a beloved film or movie and looking at the way the story breaks down into these themes. I don’t think the use or identification of a trope in a particular piece of media automatically indicates anything about the quality of writing. Yes, many tropes are overdone or simply not done well. Bad writing is bad writing, no matter how common or rare a particular theme is. Now, I do think it is true that some tropes (for example, “stuffed into the fridge”) are identified as such because they tend to be characteristic of lazy story telling. But that doesn’t mean that they should never be used or cannot be done well, only that some care should be taken to avoid clichés and stereotypes.

So I would be lying if I didn’t think about what a “Rise of House Sigeweald” page on TV Tropes would look like and have, at various points in my fan fiction career, attempted to list all the tropes in my story.

But we won’t talk about that.

I will, however, list some of the more prominent ones.

[ **The Power Trio** ](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PowerTrio)

“Then, shalt thou count to three. No more. No less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.”

~M.P. The Holy Grail

It’s no secret I like to do things in 3’s. When it comes to casting my stories, I definitely prefer an ensemble to a single sidekick. And my ensembles tend to happen in 3’s: Elspeth, Trygve, and Lydia; Evangeline, Xeri, and Nerussa; Yarah, Bedyn, and Nerien. One notable pattern among these groups is they are each comprised of 2 OCs and 1 NPC. As far as some of those subcategories are concerned, however, Elspeth & Co. are also a rough take on Blonde, Brunette, and Redhead—though Trygve’s hair ranges from red-brown to brown. He’s not really a proper ginger. There are definitely shades of Town Girls and Knight, Knave and Squire with Evangeline & Co. With respect to Yarah &Co, we don’t have much to go on as of yet, but thinking ahead, but they are probably closest to the Freudian Trio.

[ **Big Damn Heroes** ](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BigDamnHeroes)

I love this trope I made a direct reference to it in a [chapter](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3710686/chapters/12957454). This was not-so-shamefully copied from Firefly.

[ **All Girls Want Bad Boys** ](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllGirlsWantBadBoys)

As long as the “bad boy” in question is more of a Lovable Rogue or misanthrope-turned-squish, than an abusive asshole, I’m okay with this trope. However, one of my favorite things to do with tropes that are clichéd is to subvert them. And the fact that Elspeth first romance is with the College’s sweetest mage, does this somewhat. I’d also posit that despite being a little rougher around the edges than Onmund, Ralof is another cinnamon roll that Elspeth likes.

Hronger, with his overt war mongering, is something of a bad boy, as are Vipir and J’Zargo, which puts Lydia square in the middle of this trope. Of course, Lydia is hugely moral so I’m not sure she agrees with Hrongar on the war question and she dropped Viper like the hot, thieves guild potato he was. But it is their undeniable roguish charms that attracted her.

[ **Care Bear Stare** ](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CareBearStare)

This was my favorite one to use but also somewhat subvert. It happens when Onmund and Elspeth are doing illusion training and he puts her under various calm spells. However, Onmund finds this type of comfort-giving artificial and he feels terrible that he can’t simply ease Elspeth’s mind with just his words and affection.

**Future Tropes (a little teaser of things to come)**

[All Your Base Are Belong to Us](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllYourBaseAreBelongToUs)   
[Break the Badass](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BreakTheBadass)   
[Bring News Back](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BringNewsBack)   
[Cold Blooded Torture](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ColdBloodedTorture)   
[Dare to be Badass](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DareToBeBadass)   
[The Day of Reckoning](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDayOfReckoning)


	5. And Now for Something Completely Different

The first official [chapter-title playlist for The Rise of House Sigeweald Book I](https://open.spotify.com/user/elspethshimon/playlist/3VREXfoiVxYbmygY58NU0K?si=8B3Ji9aER4-tObDN9_iKkQ) is now available on Spotify, not to be confused with official soundtrack(s) (ha ha!) or character/relationship playlist you might encounter.

This is all contemporary music, mostly what I listened to though high school and university.

 

 


	6. Mother's Day Mail

My son's mother's day card. That's an interesting way of spelling "fan fiction" though....


	7. Letter #5

_Dear Elspethaurilie,_

_Your story is okay I guess. I have a question. I’ve noticed lately that your writing style has shifted slightly. It seems that the last couple of chapters are focusing on the perspective or point-of-view of an individual character rather than the broader third-person. Is this a deliberate change or a result of taking so long between chapters that you lose momentum and approach each chapter as somehow separate?_

_Askin’ Altmer_

Dear Askin’

Thank you for the question. It is true that my P.O.V. choices have changed slightly for the last couple of chapters. There are several reasons for this. For, the last Onmund and Trygve chapters, the stories were so internally and emotionally driven, it only made sense to maintain a stricter, individual perspective. However, on the last couple of chapters that featured characters I have not developed as much (Nerien, Yarah, Nerussa), it also made sense for me to get into their heads a little more than usual and keep the focus there.

However, much of this fan fiction, in addition to simply telling a story, is a way for me to practice various writing styles. It’s not how I would approach things if I were writing a novel, but I believe the fan fiction format allows for more liberties to be taken. And while I do not view each chapter as stand-alone, my style is very much inspired by serial television and so I do approach each chapter as an “episode” and sometimes the style follows that. That said, I would absolutely understand if someone were to find the shift between chapters off-putting stop reading.

 

_Dear Elspethaurilie,_

_What are you favorite and least favorite everyday, mundane headcanons to write?_

_~Prying Pelagiad_

Dear Sera Peagiad,

Oooh, good question! I once said on Tumblr that I would be perfectly content to write stories about my characters going to the farmer’s market and making dinner with their significant others and friends. Food headcanons are my absolute favorite. I write them in two ways. First, I look at the vanilla game food and ingredients available and make lists of all the possible foods and recipes that exist within those parameters. Some recipes I’ve gathered inspired by Tamriel include the following: [Honey Lavender Cake](http://www.designsponge.com/2012/07/in-the-kitchen-with-alia-and-scouts-honey-lavender-cake.html), [Kouigin Amann (Breton Butter Cake)](https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/kouign_amann_09102), [Savory Mushroom Tart](https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015830-mushroom-tart), [Lauki Soup](https://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/bottle-gourd-soup-recipe/), and [Poached Pears](https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/poached-pears-with-cardamom-and-saffron).

Second, I try to imagine what foods exist in different parts of Tamriel. I’ll admit, I freely appropriate recipes from A Feast of Ice and Fire: The Official Game of Thrones Companion Cookbook for different ideas there, likening various regions in Tamriel to those of Westeros.

My least favorite mundane headcanons to write are clothing ones. Trying to imagine my characters in more than the outfits available in-game is extremely difficult for me. and finding things on-line is also difficult, just given the scope of what is available to look at. Having available shows like Vikings and Game of Thrones is somewhat helpful as it can narrow things down and it helps to see clothing and costumes “in motion” (if that makes any sense). Otherwise, it’s hard for me to come up with ideas on my own.


	8. Letter #6

For anyone not caught up through the second book, this week’s edition of  _Your Hands Only_  kind of hints at major spoilers and may be best avoided until one is caught up.

_Dear elspethaurilie,_

_I love your story, I love the way you flesh out characters that are kind of “meh” at best in canon and give them backstories, exes, hopes, fears, all that fun stuff, and I love the way you make OCs that fit seamlessly into the universe of the Elder Scrolls. Really!_

_Now that I’ve got that out of the way, I have an important question… or two. First, where did you initially get the idea for The Rise of House Sigeweald? Second, has your son read any of your writing and if so, what did he think of it?_

_This last one isn’t really a question, but for the sake of doing this in threes, too… your son is adorable and can you give him a hug for me? I’m hugging my computer but I don’t think it’s working and my arms are starting to hurt._

_~Fearless Fanfictioner_

 

Oh wow, thank you so much for the compliment. That’s the stuff that keeps me going.

I’m going to work backwards. I did offer my son a hug from you. He was confused, but as he is a rather affectionate child, did not fret too much. He has not read my fan fiction and I pray to baby Talos he never does. I have toyed with the idea of writing him a more age-appropriate story (he’s nine), on one of his obsessions but right now it’s all Godzilla and Brooklyn 99 and I’m not touching either one of those.

I am assuming that one day, after Todd Howard releases Skyrim: Special Edition for the Classroom Smart Board, that he and his friends will discover my story. Won’t that be exciting?

Now, as to your other question, here goes. The genesis of The Rise of House Sigeweald goes back well before Skyrim was released to around the time I “finished” my Oblivion story. Now, I never actually wrote my Oblivion story from beginning to end, so that it was ever completed is debatable. But to the extent that Elspeth’s story has a history and canon, my Oblivion story exists and it pretty much ended with a pregnant and distraught Hero of Kvatch.

From that point, my original intent was to write a story set in Skyrim following the adventures of The Hero of Kvatch (Maeve)/Martin Septim’s daughter (then named Vivienne). In the original story, Isobel fled Cyrodiil before Maeve made it back to Cloud Ruler Temple. Because of this, Maeve assumes that Isobel’s son, Trebonius, is the rightful heir to the throne.

So, twenty or so years after the Oblivion Crisis, Maeve had married her fellow Blade, [Achilles](http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Achille), had another child and was keeping Vivienne’s true paternity secret. There is a lot of fighting and such over the Ruby Throne, which Maeve believes will be stopped if they can reveal a Septim heir.

Initially she was going to reveal Vivienne to be a Septim but she had no proof and then what if Isobel and her child came to challenge them? As she’s trying to work this out, her former mentor-turned-nemesis, the Nerevarine, Xeri (yep, except she’s a Redguard) came to her because she had a vision. Vivienne needed to go to Skyrim to discover the true Septim heir. Now, Xeri had betrayed Maeve in the past and usually Maeve isn’t too forgiving. However, you don’t just turn away the reincarnated Lord Nerevar Indoril. She even offered to train Vivienne, so she would be well prepared for her journey.

So, Vivienne heads north to Skyrim, where she is to meet the niece of her nanny, Runa. What I had planned was that they would find Trebonius and embark on the Trials of St. Alessia, which would end up revealing that Vivienne, not Trebonius, was the true Septim heir.

~Fin~

Okay, well that story got set aside when I got married, had a baby, and finished graduate school. And then Skyrim came out. By then I was no longer interested in finishing that story and I just wanted to play Skyrim. But I decided that Vivienne would be my first character, and while I was playing, I couldn’t help but write that story in my head, incorporating the quests in Skyrim. I wrote so much but it made no freaking sense because of the timelines. Then one day, after reading some stories over at [ericanorth.net](http://ericanorth.net/), I thought, what if I shoved 200 years of ancestors into my story, and I started crafting what is now,The Rise of House Sigewead with the following major changes:

  * Elspeth is the protagonist but Vivienne is still the name of Maeve and Martin’s daughter.
  * Trygve Wartooth took on Trebonius’ role. Now, in the current story lore, Isobel and Trebonius did make it Skyrim safely over 200 years ago and lived a lovely peaceful life but have no connection whatsoever to Trygve Wartooth. I thought about making a distant relation, but I couldn’t think of an interesting way to reveal it.
  * Xeri is now a Dunmer and not in any way related to the Nerevarine.
  * Runa hasn’t changed much, except that her history involves the Great War.
  * Bedyn is kind of loosely based on Achille who was the Blade Maeve married to help conceal Vivienne’s paternity.
  * Runa’s niece was never officially named, but Lydia seemed to fit. And that gave me a really nice way to change up the way that she and Elspeth met, giving them sort of a pre-established history but also letting their relationship develop.



Well, I hope that answers your question. Suffice to say, Elspeth & Co. have been with me for a very long time.


	9. Letter #7

_Dear elspethaurilie,_

_Your story is okay I guess. I was wondering if you had any NPC headcanons that won’t get fleshed out in the story, that you’d like to share here?_

_~snoopingisbad_

 

Dear Snooper,

Do I? Sit down children and listen up. We may be here a while. Actually, that’s not true. But what is true is that I will be repeating this question from time to time, so I can share all the dumb stories I’ve given to the people who occupy this world.

And we will begin with [Borri](http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Borri). Y’all know Borri, yes?

He’s the youngest of the Greybeards, and was reluctant to become one, but he was very proficient. Of the four of them, he’s the one with the most curiosity about the outside world. When he was younger, he had brief love affair with one of the pilgrims who visited High Hrothgar. This was scandalous and Arengier threatened to banish him, but the other Greybeards pointed out that this was in no way explicitly forbidden. That woman had a baby, but never returned. That baby grew up, married an asshole, and died in childbirth after delivering twins.

And this is why [Sissel](http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Sissel) in Rorikstead dreams of Parthunaax.

 

_Dear elspethaurilie,_

_How large is your Skryim? When you are thinking of travel times, for example, do you go by the dimensions put out by fans and developers or do you have your own sense of how large things are? Do you imagine that cities are much bigger?_

_~InquivestigatingImperial_

 

Dear…ah, I.I.,

Skyrim is as big as I need it to be, which is to say, much larger than it “really” is but not so big that I can’t get my head around it. So it’s about the size of Ohioish.

I do imagine that cities are much, much bigger and that they are far more populated. As a visual example of how I enlarge cities in my mind, consider the layout of Balmora in the game Morrowind. And then consider this [rendering](https://www.deviantart.com/alexeyrudikov/art/Balmora-Aerial-view-291703424) over on Deviant art.


End file.
